The Year of the Book, Andrea Cheng

The Year of the Book is a novel about diversity.  It has a distinct main character but also focuses on another character and what is going on in her life.  Anna is the main character, her family is from China but she grew up in America learning English.  She struggles with celebrating and understanding both her Chinese and American cultures, she even goes to Chinese school to learn Chinese and the culture.  The other character the novel focuses on is Laura.  Laura and Anna become best friends.  Laura is struggling because her parents are going through a divorce. 

I think that this is a great book to use in the classroom.  Since we live in such a diverse world I think this book has something in it that every student will be able to relate with.  The novel for would be great for ESL students because it shows how Anna struggles learning Chinese but at the end of the she begins to understand what is going on in Chinese school, so they can see that soon they will understand English.  The Year of the Book would also be good for students with learning disabilities because Anna’s cousin has a learning disability but at the end she gets an A on an assignment.  So this will show students that they can achieve their goals even if they have adversity going against them.  Because of Laura’s story this would be a great book for students whose family is going through a separation or divorce.  The Year of the Book also gave me great lesson plan ideas.  The novel listed a lot of the different books that Anna read so I could recommend those books to students in my classroom.  A lot of the book takes place in Anna’s classroom so it gave me a few different activities I could use in my classroom, like having students making a timeline of their lives.  I really enjoyed this book and liked how it inspires people to read and shows how books can comfort us and be our escape from reality.